


eggshell blues

by lupinsmiles (perbe)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, idiots in war, two idiots being stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 17:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2355968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perbe/pseuds/lupinsmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are twenty and you never get over the feeling you're going to drop something around him.</p><p>( The one where Sirius suspects Remus and Remus suspects Sirius and both of them fall suspect to silence. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	eggshell blues

x.

He says: Sirius?

You try to remember what it is you wanted to tell him about.    

 

                                                                                             i.                                                                                            

At some point, you decide he’s serialized like all his favorite books. He takes you to libraries with ceilings so high you feel your stomach clench; and you catalog his phalanges as a performance piece—his mouth dripping epics in dead tongues—the verbs nonsensical—the exposition long forgotten—but always, the way he presses against you is nonfiction.

 

ix.

You like it when he calls you mad.

 

iii.

You can’t help it.

 

iv.

He tells you about the Sagrada Familia and looks at the ceiling when he tries to pronounce Antoni Gaudi and you try to feel guilty about your inattention but really, you’re paying him too much attention and you can think of about fifty better uses for his _everything_ than shivering in the premature cold, three paces ahead of you.

You don’t like beginnings, see. You don’t like endings much either, and you drum your fingers and feet and hands to the middle and he says, alright, Sirius, alright, I get it already.

 

vi.

The point of it is, he’s the only one who knows how to shelf things properly. And it’s like five in the morning and you’re going with your shitty metaphor—the one where Remus is serialized nonfiction and when he puts himself all back in place, you won’t ever be able to find him again. And, and if you fill up all the margins with bawdy jokes and cartoonized genitalia he can’t possibly go through with this plan of slipping away one missing sock at a time.

You feel that this is no less than he deserves. He has claimed all the blankets and shelves and has the world’s largest collection of the right things to say and has the audacity to be surprised you try to tether him with inanity, with take-out boxes and surprise trips to the sea.

You near stick your hands down his trousers in the mornings when you’re both awake and brave enough to cave to fear and sleepy enough to pretend to have forgotten how to doubt.

You want to take him apart.

You want to hate him.

You want to tell him you bet he’d be great at dying, given his self-imposed obscurity. You almost ask him to teach you how to do it.

You want to be on CONSTANT VIGILANCE around him.

Well, you are, but you doubt you can say this to Moody without a snort or two or three.

 

ii.

You read him in the wrong order.

 

v.

You wonder what he’d do if you cut all the elbow patches from his cardigans, if you dog-ear all his books, if you carpet his floor with dirty socks, if you slap your fingerprints and handprints and well, all of you in bright red paint on his wall, if you tell him you’ve found your constellation in his freckles and, Remus, you’d really like it if he took your cock in his mouth, the way his tongue slips over half-empty bottles of brandy, it’s criminal.

But at night you drink weak tea in mugs big as quaffles and snuff out fags in the dregs. You hang them on the knobs of his cabinets for him to pick up and it’s a puzzle, where has he been today, can he still talk, can he still walk, can he still hold things without breaking them?

You use his marmalade knife the day he has a cold and end up snotting on James for the rest of the week.  

 

vii.

After raids, you’ve got this game you play at the pub. Scotch all around, jazz in the background, smoke thick with words creeping ‘round the corners. The objective is to pluck them from the air. Try your hand at juxtaposition, weave them into conversation. Handy, for when you run out (too often). Tricky, for when your throats dry around sawdust-flavoured news, some shades of green just make your lungs hurt. 

You say: Two shots, please.

He says: My cat ate the grindylow.

You say: Merlin’s anus.

You both laugh.

You are twenty and you never get over the feeling you’re going to drop something around him.

 

viii.

Nine down is “perioeci.”

 

xi.

So watch him, Moody says.

Your laughter is an avian thing that claws at your lungs.


End file.
